Introducing Adam Platt's periodic Internet musings, under the pseudonym of the Gobbler.
Restaurant critics are used to operating under assumed names (even if we're usually recognized), so let me explain the etymology of Gobbler. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary (online edition), "to gobble" means "to swallow or eat greedily." Likewise, a "gobbler" is "a male turkey," or "one that gobbles." It's as fitting a designation as any for someone whose job it is to sit in spangled, overpriced restaurants all night, and sometimes all day, sipping ridiculously festive cocktail drinks, taking not-so-surreptitious notes under the table, smiling wearily as the sixteenth foie gras preparation of the week comes clattering down on the table.

In a stunning rebuke to vegetarians everywhere, sinister germ E. coli, known for its frequent appearances in gnarly fast-food hamburgers, has appeared in spinach. The government has quarantined the nation's supply, but demand hasn't completely waned. Who besides Bluto (and possibly Wimpy) would be cheered by this crisis? From spanakopita to creamed spinach, it's one vegetable everybody seems to love.
And so we turn to "At the Greenmarket" writer Zoe Singer, who suggests the following replacements: